1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus and a method for reproducing multimedia data in a motor vehicle.
2. Description of Prior Art
Today, the reproduction of multimedia data is in ever more widespread use in motor vehicles. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,941,194 discloses a vehicle communication system in which a plurality of different data sources and a plurality of different operator terminals are connected to a computation unit, the data sources including, inter alia, a reproduction appliance for DVDs and CDs and also a tuner for receiving television signals. A central system controller awards the operator terminals individual and different access rights to the data sources and their associated applications. For the vehicle driver's operator terminal, this means, inter alia, that he can be refused an access right to a television receiver completely or just while driving.
This complies with the legal regulations stipulating that, for safety reasons, no moving pictures are permitted to be shown in a traveling vehicle. In Germany, a vehicle is currently deemed to be in a traveling state when it is moving at a speed of 6 km/h or greater. The traveling state of a vehicle is subsequently referred to as the driving state, and the opposite of this, that is to say when the vehicle is moving at a speed below a limit speed or is stationary, is referred to as the non-driving state.
DVDs which are known today as data storage media for multimedia data store digital audio and video data together, the audio data and the video data respectively comprising a plurality of data streams. For storage on a DVD, the audio data streams and video data streams, which are originally separate, are multiplexed together. When the DVD is played back, a single multiplexed audio-video data stream is therefore read from the DVD, and during further processing this single multiplexed audio-video data stream is broken down into the audio and video components again and is supplied to the respective audio and graphical output units.
Today, the video data stored on the DVD usually include the actual video picture data, that is to say the moving pictures, and also menu data. Menu data are understood to mean the digital representation of a user interface, and the user interface can have not only an operator control structure embedded in it but also, inter alia, one or more tables of contents for the films, music tracks or videos which the DVD contains and also various setting and selection options relating to reproduction options.
In today's multimedia reproduction appliances in motor vehicles, graphical output of any video data is prevented above a limit speed in order to comply with the legal regulations. In addition to non-display of the moving video pictures, this also results in display of the DVD's user interface being suppressed. If the data stored on the DVD are music tracks in conjunction with music videos, inter alia, then the suppression of the user interface means that it is also no longer possible to select a desired music track from a content directory, even though it is permissible to operate audio reproduction appliances in the traveling vehicle. The audio data from the DVD can now be reproduced only in the stored order.